Drowning in the Rubicon
by Ornithoppip
Summary: Courtesy of Yami Malik's repeated mental tortures and possessions, Anzu starts to believe that she has betrayed everything she believed in and hurt all her friends one time too many. She slowly teeters on the edge of sanity... (End of Battle City arc)


**Drowning in the Rubicon**

Disclaimer- Don't own anything. Special thanks go out to Jane Gardam, Wizards of the Coast, and VNV Nation for their contributions to this fanfic. This fic is dedicated to Mega Man MUSH' Yu-Gi-Oh fanbase, and especiall Brian Kunde and Andy Kirchoff. 

I would also like to add that I kid because I care- this fanfic is the product of the mind of a dedicated Anzu lover, not an Anzu hater. You can often tell the difference because the latter just include lots of gratuitous violence. You always hurt the ones you love, and so on... he he. 

--- 

****

**_"Just lie back and keep quiet, Mazaki. Things will be over faster if you stop struggling against me."_**

_"Get away from me, Malik! I won't let you do this any more!"_

****

**_"You see, the problem with that statement is that you don't have much of a choice in the matter. You are weak. I am strong. The protocol is obvious. Now stop resisting me, damn you!"_**

_"Get AWAY! Get out of my body! Stop it... stop it, please! Malik, leave me alone! Stop torturing me! Malik, no... no, no! HwaAAAAHH!"_

****

**_"Your body will serve me in whatever way I choose to make use of it for. This is the only fate you exist for. All your dreams of love and friendship I'll delight in breaking... let me show you, Anzu. Let me show you how I'm going to control your body like my string puppet, and it will be by your hand that the Pharaoh and all those close to you perish... irony and effective too. And let me remind you. There is nothing you can do about it. You are a worthless, futureless, weak-souled human whose only Purpose is a tool that I can use to forever strike at Yugi until he or you breaks. Never forget that, Anzu. Never forget that you are a failure as a human, and that you have no reason to exist other than to give me a means to end the Pharaoh. And that is all."_**

---

_"I'm worthless."_

Mazaki Anzu woke in a way that had become commonplace for her recently- abruptly, alone and with her mind blank and foggy. She was in an abandoned building on Alcatraz Island, her exhausted body assumedly discarded by Malik until she recovered her strength while he used her to spy on the final matches of Battle City. Instead of her previous instinctive reactions in such circumstances- checking herself, looking round to see if she could find anyone she recognised, or steeling herself to see the workings of a death-trap or Shadow Game playing out around her- that feeling was all she thought. This was followed by sinking into the foetal position and lapsing into a haze as her emotion poured out like a wineskin, as Anzu crossed over the last barrier into outright, paralysing depression as everything she stood for... all the cheer, all the happiness, camaraderie and hope... started to inevitably crumble under the combined torture of Yami Malik's possessions.

This was the point where she could take no more. Since the GHOULS organisation began stalking the dark streets of Battle City and Malik set his plans into motion to retrieve the three Ancient Egyptian God Cards and kill Yugi Moto and everyone he cared about, his pawn in those plans was Anzu. He could control her mind with a thought, turning her into a mindless doll to carry out whatever plan he wished, using her as an expendable pawn with inhuman casualness. The pure, loving girl who desired nothing more out of life than friendship and simple happiness was utterly powerless to stop him... and now, all the pain and all the ruthless, consuming self-loathing suffused her as she lay there, as her thoughts ran wild, deep and dark inside her head.

---

_"I don't deserve this..."_

Fear, like some kind of mental halfbrick, first came to Anzu as just a rush of all the accumulated events that she had been forced to endure over the course of her journey. When she began she never knew that she would have become a player in the worst games of Egyptian sorcery the world had seen in five thousand years. The one thought that was initially prevalent was the question of why she even bothered. With it came memories that only served to reinforce this- being used as a Duel Monster in a Shadow Game, being trapped in a world where every living thing sought her destruction for the cause of the Big Five, being cursed by dark magic and facing the very real threat of death at the claws of things that had previously only existed to her as artwork on cardboard- 

_"I'm just a normal girl. I'm not some millionaire like Kaiba or have ancient magic like the spirit. I'm no hero. Just... another kid who only even played the odd game of Duel Monsters..."_

With that thought came a throwback to a recent memory; that world controlled by the Big Five, the virtual world where she had to fight. Anzu knew Duel Monsters, that much was true, but she never did anything with it like Jounouchi or Yugi. It was like carrying a taser for self-defence- not a weapon to fight with, just a last resort to use in the direst circumstances. 

_"Just another kid who went along to cheer their... friends..."_

This sparked another memory, another strong memory that Anzu clung to like flotsam in a shipwreck. When she fought in that virtual world, how did she win? She bonded with the Dark Magician Girl and won the battle with Yugi's help. Her spirit joined with that of the Pharaoh to win out against Noa. She was... in all things, despite what pain she suffered, she was with her friends.

Introspection set in, gradually encroaching. Was she living her life for her friends? Was living her life even the right way to put it?

---

_"'Forget about me! Get yourselves out of here!', I said. I wanted to... for them to escape Malik's duel even though their interference would cost me my life..."_

Anzu drifted back to that duel, the first time Malik had her body in his grasp. He controlled her only long enough to put her in a death-trap to act as insurance to make sure Yugi or Jounouchi died in a duel even worse than a Shadow Game at Battle City harbour- and a giant crate would have ended her life if anyone tried to save them. Yet she was willing to die without hesitation to guarantee saving them. Why? Martyrdom? Foolishness? No, it was because that it was her fault. For the threat of her death they were willing to sacrifice each other, and she wasn't... worth that. Perhaps it really was Malik's words influencing her, but Anzu's thoughts progressively darkened as her impressions of her own self-worth darkened.

_"I shouldn't have gotten involved in these events. Because of me, Malik has a perfect tool to carry out all of his plans with. My friends won't hurt me... but that's exactly what he wants... he can do anything._

_Friendship... I'm too weak, I'm not deserving of a friendship with Yugi... because I am just a normal person, I'm not strong enough to fight this battle."_

All of Anzu's reflections... all her preaching of the power of being friends seemed so hypocritical to her now. What good was she doing for anyone? What magic had manifested from the power of friendship, as opposed to Malik's shadow magic that were filling her veins with evil power at this very second? For a second, she experienced a brief memory of handing the spirit a Diffusion card, but her addled mind disregarded it without hesitation.

How Anzu wept.

_"Malik WAS right. Nothing I've ever done has had any worth to it. All my talk of friendship has been worthless... because I'm just a regular person. Nothing. No point. Yugi, Jounouchi, Honda, Mai... it might have been worthwhile when we were just playing games, but I'm useless when the fate of the world is at stake in these battles. Maybe I've put the world in danger. They won't hurt me... so Malik can do whatever he wants with-as-to me. Maybe that's why I thought it would be better if I died... I didn't want to accept it then, but... as long as I live, Malik will keep using me against Yugi."_

How Anzu cried.

---

She stumbled into a mostly empty room and collapsed on the desk that was inside, knuckles white, heaving. There were several items scattered across the desk, but among the stationary was a silvery penknife- cool, sharp and... so strangely inviting. Anzu reached out to pick it up and as she did, caught sight of the faded mark on the back of her hand. How appropriate it was that the sign she herself had marked- a quarter of the seal of friendship between them- was gone. She picked the penknife up and looked at her reflection in it- the state she had been reduced to even shocked her. She sunk back, staring at herself in the blade.

_"So, this is it."_

Anzu ran through the events in her head. Playing Yugi and Jounouchi into his trap and all the chaos it created, restoring Yami Bakura to power and condemning his better half; all the things he had done to hurt her friends played over in her mind, no happy vision unable to dispel them. Everything she lived by betrayed, everyone she cared for made to suffer by her. She would not- could not- forgive herself, having betrayed every ideal that made her what she was. __

---

_"So if I die... Malik can't use me to put Yugi and my friends in danger any longer..."_

****

**_"You know, it's always been said that it never takes as much courage to end a man's life as it does to end your own. You've certainly gained a lot of courage since I last saw you, Mazaki Anzu."_**

_"No. You won't use me any more. I'm going to..."_

****

**_"Alright then. I'm waiting."_**

_"I'm going to stop you from using me to hurt Yugi and my friends. There's still one thing I can do to defy you."_

****

If Malik was there, she would have spat in his face. Instead, Anzu screwed her eyes shut, dragging the penknife across one wrist.

****

She felt heat running freely across her arm, and could barely stand to open her eyes. However, when she did, she saw her wrist undamaged, purple motes of magic like tiny scarabs streaking up her forearm and knitting it closed.

_"..."_

****

**_"..."_**__

_*sob*_

****

**_"You know something, Anzu? On reflection, if you want to do this, I've got an idea to do it in at least a slightly more spectacular fashion."_**

_"What? Wait- no!"_

****

**_"Let's head to one of the Alcatraz towers. If you're going to do this, let's do it big, right?"_**

_"no..."_

Eyes navy and vacant, Anzu eased the penknife from her wrists and dropped it from numb fingers. Tears rolling down her cheeks and under Malik's complete control, Anzu strode away, one mind consigned to certain death and one mind certain to receive it.

---


End file.
